Caste and Race in India c8.118

c8.118

In the sphere of religion the tendency is to forbid to the Śūdra the use of the most efficacious formulæ and rites on the one hand, and to exhort him to perform most of the daily rites and the obligatory sacraments prescribed for the other castes. The doctrine of salvation through the conscientious discharge of the duties proper to caste is, indeed, mentioned here and there. But evidently the Brahmin lawgivers of this period did not feel fully satisfied with that method of salvation. They had come to possess too much faith in the efficacy of the rites and sacraments to allow them to be neglected even by the Śūdra. The liberalizing influence of the Buddhist revolt and of Vaiṣṇava compassion led the Brahmins to devise ways and means of assuring spiritual betterment to the Śūdra in the Brahmanic way of rites and sacraments. It must also be mentioned that the performance of the Brahmanic rites and sacraments by a large section of the people had a selfish interest for the Brahmin, which he could not have entirely lost sight of. Rites and sacraments require the services of a Brahmin. The Śūdra caste—the largest section of the people—was the only one which was denied sacred knowledge. If the Śūdras wanted to perform the Brahmanic rites and sacraments they would invariably have to requisition the services of a Brahmin. To allow the Śūdra the privilege of these sacred performances was thus to ensure a large clientele for the Brahmin. Yet neither the genuine desire to widen the scope of his religious regulations so as to make it possible for the lowly Śūdra to work for his spiritual uplift in the Brahmanic way, nor the selfish motive of procuring mass clientele was strong enough for the Brahmin to override completely his supreme faith in the sanctity of his lore or his high regard for ceremonial purity. He began to make a distinction between the Śūdra who behaved properly according to the Brahmin’s ideas, and the Śūdra who was slovenly enough not to come up to this standard of conduct—the “sat” and the “asat” Śūdra. Only the former class of Śūdras was allowed the privilege of the practice of rites and sacraments though without the use of the Vedic formulæ.